"Memoirs of a Geisha" VV review

[mark schilling]

Newsweek Japan asked me to contribute an essay on Hollywood's view of Japan
for their special feature on "Memoirs of a Geisha." Here's the section on
"Memoirs" itself. I wonder how much will survive the final edit?

Mark Schilling

Hollywood's latest take on Old Japan is "Memoirs of a Geisha," Rob Marshall'
s screen version of Arthur Golden's best-selling novel. It is something of a
throwback to an older Hollywood that regarded the cultures of the Mysterious
East as a chop suey it could mix and blend to taste. Chop suey, of course,
is an American dish masquerading as Chinese and the authenticity of much old
Hollywood Orientalia was similarly suspect. Marshall and his staff labored
mightily to achieve an accurate period look (save when it did not suit their
dramatic purposes) -- but made several glaring errors. Nobu, Sayuri's
would-be patron, loudly praises a small sumo champion (played by former
real-life sumo star Mainoumi) for his splendid hatakikomi. First of all,
hatakikomi is not considered a champion-like way of winning, unlike the more
powerful and thus macho pushes and throws. Second, a small wrestler would
not ordinarily make the technique his specialty, since height is required to
execute it consistently.

Marshall departs more radically from realism, however, in casting three
well-known Chinese actresses for the lead female roles -- Zhang Ziyi as the
eponymous heroine, Gong Li as her bitter rival Hatsumomo and Michelle Yeah
as the okiya okasan Mameha, who takes Zhang's Sayuri under her wing. Zhang
and Gong generate spectacular fireworks, but they and the elegant Yeoh are
unmistakably non-Japanese. Some cultural leaps are hard to make for all but
the most gifted chameleons -- and impersonating a geisha, whose every
gesture derives from a deep, exclusively Japanese tradition, is one of them.
Zhang is a wonderful dancer, but her brisk, sharp movements with fans are
closer to Chinese dance than the softer geisha buyo. Also, the choreography
for her big solo number during her debut as a stage performer is totally
Broadway, not the Gion. Marshall evidently felt compelled to remind everyone
that he was the director of "Chicago" - but the film's credibility suffers a
blow it never recovers from.

It doesn't help that the girl who plays Zhang's younger self for the film's
first forty minutes looks nothing like her and that Zhang and the other
actors speak English almost exclusively, with a variety of Asian accents.
But then the American audience, for whom the film is mainly intended, is not
expected to mind these and other inconsistencies, just as they were once not
expected to notice the taped-up eyes of Marlon Brando's "Japanese"
interpreter in "Teahouse of the August Moon."

Under the guidance of the worldly-wise Mameha, Sayuri quickly masters
various geisha arts, but balks at pleasing the wealthy older men who
underwrite the whole enterprise. Instead she rises to the top more on the
basis of her beauty and artistic talent than the core geisha art of
flirtation -- and seduction. She also avoids entanglement in the traditional
geisha (and Japanese) web of duty and obligation to a patron, while
resisting harsh bullying by Hatsumomo and relentless exploitation by her
first okiya okasan (Kaori Momoi). Supported by her (mostly one-sided) love
for the kindly rich businessman played by Ken Watanabe, she emerges
essentially unsoiled from her hardships and trials.

Kenji Mizoguchi, who made the best film about the geisha, "Gion no Shimai"
(Sisters of the Gion, 1936), took a different view, based on experience
instead of "Sayuri"'s PC fantasies. His own sister was a geisha and, as
young man, Mizoguchi became thoroughly acquainted with her world. In "Gion
no Shimai" the two sisters of the title are among the common geisha herd,
not Sayuri's elite, scraping out a living any way they can. The older,
Umekichi (Yoko Umemura), is an old-fashioned type who stays loyal to her
patron, even after he falls on hard times. The younger, Omocha (Isuzu
Yamada), is a modern girl who scorns loyalty as bad for business and
manipulates men with a casual, if calculated, ease. Both come to bad ends
because, in a male-dominated society, neither has the power to overcome male
superiority -- and brutality.

Instead of Mizoguchi's informed, unblinking portrayal of the prewar geisha's
real lot,"Memoirs" offers a romanticized, deracinated caricature for foreign
consumption. "My world is as forbidden as it is fragile, without its
mysteries it cannot survive," Sayuri intones. Omocha's last, angry cry -- 
"Why must there be such things as geisha?" -- reveals a heart without
illusions about "mysteries," protesting against an institution that was less
"forbidden" and "frail" than simply feudal. The geisha world has survived,
however -- and so has Hollywood's need to invent its own Japan.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christine Marran" <marran at umn.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 3:17 AM
Subject: Re: "Memoirs of a Geisha" VV review


> My favorite line in this hilarious review is:
>
> "In this garish pageant of dragon-lady vamping and drag-queen catfights,
> the geisha experience is roughly akin to working the bar at Lucky
Cheng's."
>
>
>
> Kerim Yasar wrote:
> > Here's the most entertaining review so far:
> >
> > http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0549,lim,70711,20.html
> >
> > My favorite bit:
> >
> > "The overall aesthetic could be approximated by
> > turning on a wind machine in a Chinatown souvenir
> > emporium. With Marshall preoccupied picking out
> > fabrics and lacquer veneers, the task of directing the
> > actors seems to have fallen to the beleaguered dialect coach."
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> >
> > .
> >
>
>
> -- 
> Christine L. Marran
> Asst. Professor of Japanese Literature and Cultural Studies
> Director of Undergraduate Studies
> Department of Asian Languages and Literatures
> University of Minnesota
>
>